Classmates, friends and family of Christos Michalopoulos assembled outside a church near the central Greek city of Thebes to bid farewell to the 17-year-old who died during a police chase on November 11, Al Jazeera reported.
Michalopoulos died from a bullet lodged in his collarbone after being chased by officers, marking the third time in less than three years that a Romani teenager had been killed in incidents involving Greek police.
There have been protests, calls for justice and clashes with police across the country. Those close to Michalopoulos insisted he was killed by police, but that claim has not been confirmed by Greek police.
Amnesty International appealed for “prompt, thorough, transparent and effective investigation into the latest incident as well, including an investigation into a possible discriminatory motive”.
On November 16, the accused policeman, who has not been named, gave his initial testimony in Thebes. The accused was later released from custody after giving his testimony. He was suspended from active police duty.
Police officers chased the car in which Michalopoulos was driving on a road outside Thebes. The passengers were Michalopoulos’s brother and two other teenagers.
Greek police reported that the car was travelling erratically and at high speed. Police officers signalled the driver to stop, but the warning was ignored, they said. The police report stated that officers chased the car until it crashed into a parked vehicle and stopped.
The lawyer for the police officer allegedly involved in the incident stated it appeared that the teenager tried to grab the gun. In his statement, the police officer reportedly said:
“I was shouting for him to open the door, so we could check on him, I had taken out my pistol because I didn’t know who was inside the vehicle and if he carried a weapon. When I opened the car door, he tried to grab my gun. When I realised his intention, I drew the pistol and then I heard the click, I froze.”
However, the victim’s brother claimed that the policeman hit the car window with a gun, dragged Michalopoulos out of the car, kicked him and then shot him. A few days after the incident, CCTV footage taken near the murder scene was released, in which an altercation between police and the teenagers was heard.
According to Greek media reports, an autopsy showed that Michalopoulos was shot at close range, while forensic evidence revealed that none of his DNA was found on the gun.
A lawyer representing the Mihalopoulos family accused the police of falsifying evidence. He claimed that police washed the scene, moved and cleaned the car driven by the 17-year-old and wiped the dead boy’s hands.
The Panhellenic Confederation of Greek Roma accused the police of discrimination, given other recent fatal incidents.
How much more research is needed on dead Roma before we decide as a state and as a society to proactively and courageously face racism and intolerance so that today one more family does not mourn?
The other two victims were Nikos Sampanis and Kostas Frangoulis. Sampanis, 18, was killed by police on the outskirts of Athens on October 23, 2021, in a car chase. A squad of Greek police officers on motorbikes chased the vehicle he was travelling in to Perama and fired at least 36 bullets at it.
Kostas Frangoulis, 16, was shot dead by police on December 5, 2022, in Thessaloniki after police chased the boy in his car as he allegedly stole 20 euros ($22) worth of petrol.
